International visas

[Paul W. Frields]

On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 02:26:31PM -0400, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 02:11:42PM -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> > Sandro and I had an interesting chat regarding travel visas, and
> > here's the agreement we arrived at.  The following is based on our
> > reading of the Swiss entry process, which is fairly easy to
> > understand.  I've tried to be general about the guidelines so this
> > might work in other places as well.
> > 
> > * If a traveler requires a visa to enter the country where FUDCon is
> >   held, and that traveler's costs are approved, we should also cover
> >   their visa costs.  This includes an application fee, insurance, and
> >   any other related cost required for travel, provided the costs are
> >   reasonable.
> > 
> > * Costs for items like passports, which have long-term benefits far
> >   beyond FUDCon travel, should be handled by the traveler, not FUDCon
> >   funding.
> > 
> > * In some cases, it's possible for a foreign mission or embassy to
> >   require an official sponsorship to approve the traveler's visa.  To
> >   sponsor a traveler means that the sponsor guarantees that person's
> >   costs (possibly within some limit) to the state the traveler is
> >   visiting.  This can happen if the embassy/mission judges that the
> >   incoming traveler is a high risk for either remaining in the state
> >   beyond their permitted time frame, or some other criteria not under
> >   our control.  This is probably a very unlikely situation for our
> >   travelers.
> > 
> >   We can't ask community members to provide this sort of sponsorship,
> >   because it makes them liable for these costs.  If the embassy or
> >   mission returns with this requirement before it will grant the visa,
> >   then we would have to decline.  That means we would lose a little
> >   money on an airfare, and the traveler wouldn't be able to attend.
> >   The risk is low and seems worth taking, since we want to encourage
> >   international visitors to FUDCons in their region of the world.
> > 
> > 
> One more thing, somewhat tangential to this -- The passport and visa process
> can be quite long.  People from Brasil told me that getting a US visa in
> Brasil takes a minimum of 3 months.  This is not necessarily the maximum
> amount of time to expect in other countries either....
> 
> Perhaps something to be added to the "asking for funding" requests for
> international travelers is: Do you need to get visa/passport to attend?  If
> so, how far in advance do you need to know about funding in order to also
> have your visa/passport forms processed?

I added this question to the ticket template for funding requests.  It
doesn't retroactively change tickets already in the system, but it may
be useful for later entries, and of course later FUDCons.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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